The Anthony McMichael and David Shearman Prize for excellence in environmental advocacy for public health
This Prize is awarded by DEA (Doctors for the Environment Australia) in honour of the seminal work in climate change and its impacts on human health by former University of Adelaide Professors, Anthony McMichael and David Shearman, founders of DEA in 2001.
The Prize will be awarded at the University of Adelaide Declaration Ceremony by the Chair of the DEA SA committee (or nominee) to the Year 6 medical student who has consistently through their medical studies demonstrated one or more of the following:
- Advocacy for the need to address environmental challenges to health.
- An understanding of the relationship between healthcare, sustainability and the environment.
- Completion of an elective placement, research project or professional development activity in planetary health, sustainability, public health, rural health or a related discipline.
- Leadership within an environmental group (such as DEA) and/or the medical student body through the organisation of and involvement in extracurricular activities related to climate change and its threat to human health.
- Contributions to environmental and health advocacy outside of medical curriculum requirements. Students can be nominated or self-nominate. Applications are to be submitted to the DEA SA committee ([email protected] ) by October 15th of each year. Applicants will be ranked according to the above criteria. The recipient’s name with be engraved on a plaque which will record the names of all recipients of the Prize. The recipient will be the custodian of the plaque until the next time the Prize is awarded when the role of custodian will pass to the new recipient. The recipient will be provided with a Certificate and a minimum sum of $1000 (or greater amount as determined by the DEA SA Committee), both provided by DEA.
Professor Anthony McMichael
For more than 40 years until his death at the age of 71 in 2014, Emeritus Professor McMichael AO was a champion of environmental health and he became the world's authority on the impact of climate change on human health.
As the Director of the ANU National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health (NCEPH) he was also instrumental in alerting the world to the dangers of passive smoking and the health impacts of lead pollution, leading to a ban on lead in petrol in more than 100 countries.
From the early 1990s, Professor McMichael provided expert advice to both the World Health Organization and the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the risks to human health from climate change.
Professor McMichael studied medicine in Adelaide and completed a PhD in epidemiology in 1972, before working as an academic and researcher at the University of North Carolina in the United States, the CSIRO and the University of Adelaide.
He also served as Professor of Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine between 1994 and 2001.
Professor McMichael was Director at NCEPH from 2001 to 2007, and was awarded a prestigious Australia Fellowship by the National Health and Medical Research Council in 2007.
He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2011 Australia Day Honours, and was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in the same year.
Professor McMichael published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers and three major books, including his 1993 book Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and Human Health, which outlined the threats to health from climate change, ozone depletion, land degradation, loss of biodiversity and the explosion of cities.
He also served on the Science Advisory Panel to the former Australian government's Climate Change Commission, and was an Honorary Professor of Climate Change and Health at the University of Copenhagen.
Professor David Shearman
David Shearman AM MBChB PhD FRACP FRCPE was Emeritus Professor of Medicine at Adelaide University and previously held senior positions at Edinburgh and Yale Universities.
His clinical speciality was gastroenterology and he contributed to seven editions of Davidson's Textbook of Medicine between 1972-1996, and to other books and journals related to gastroenterology.
He was also the author of several books and many articles in peer-reviewed journals and the media relating to climate change, its science, consequences, democratic and international and economic implications.
He was a contributor to two working groups of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on human health and on Australasian biodiversity issues.
He has been President of the Conservation Council of South Australia, and with the late Professor Tony McMichael he founded Doctors for the Environment Australia in 2001, taking on the role of Honorary Secretary from 2001- 2018.
He was awarded an AM for “for significant service to medicine in the fields of gastroenterology and environmental health, particularly the impact of global climate change on health”.
For more information please contact [email protected]